A Silver OpportunityA Silver Opportunity
By George Kleinman
Something's going on in the precious metals.
Despite the fact that the dollar continued to strengthen Friday (with the euro hitting new lows for 2005), both gold and silver managed to close higher on the day. Last Wednesday, a large trader/fund manager bought 12,000 August $445 gold calls for $200 each. This is a huge-volume trade in the gold option pit for an "out of the money" strike. On Friday, he bought another 3,000 of these same options for $210 each.
This guy is, in effect, making a $30 million bet that August gold futures, currently trading less than $430 per ounce, will be trading above $447 in the coming 45 days. If gold futures aren't trading above this level on July 26 and he hasn't done anything with these options by that time, he'll lose $30 million. This guy is said to be a smart trader.
Last week in my trading service, Futures Market Forecaster, I recommended the purchase of August gold at about $426 per ounce. Gold and silver generally move in the same direction, albeit at different speeds--silver tends to move faster than gold (in either direction). And while I like both, I prefer silver, particularly in the current area. Take a look at the chart of July 2005 silver futures (updated through Friday).
July 2005 Silver
www.commodity.com
First, you can see this market recently had a severe price break. From a high of 763 on June 2, the market broke as low as 715.50 on Friday before closing at 729. This is a price correction of about 6 percent.
Has a top been established, or is this merely a correction in an uptrend?
I suggest this break represents a correction in the uptrend and is a premier buying opportunity for the white metal. Why? Friday was a big volume day and such days generally occur at bottoms and/or tops. This feels more like a bottom than a top.
Also, open interest has continued to rise on this break. If this were a top, open interest would have been declining on the rally from 688 in mid-May to the early June top of 763. However, it was rising during this period, and continued to rise last week--indicating that this wasn't a liquidation, but rather new money coming into the market on the break.
An example of big volume on a break in an uptrend can be seen on the chart of May 2004 silver futures. Note the volume spike on the break in price during February (at the low of the break). This was a correction of about 8 percent in price top to bottom. As mentioned above, the current break is about 6 percent.
May 2004 Silver
www.commodity.com
Another clue to this puzzle--found in the Commitments of Traders data--leads me to believe there's a buying opportunity in the silver markets. When the large volume spike happened in February 2004, the Commitments of Traders data indicated that large speculative traders weren't overextended on the long side, as measured by the long-to-short ratio. They held nine long contracts for every short contract.
I've indicated the record-large speculative long position on the chart--at the peak the speculators were 20-to-1 long-to-short. This record-large 20-to-1 ratio came about a week before the top and a subsequent major collapse.
Where is this ratio today? The large speculators are 9-to-1 long-to-short. This move has a long way to go; expect silver to break above $8 per ounce before the July call options expire on June 27.
I've already recommended the purchase of the July 750 silver call options in Futures Market Forecaster, and I might recommend adding to this position if the market acts properly this week. On Friday these options closed at about $450 each, which is the maximum risk plus fees. If silver trades at $8 per ounce, they'll be worth--at minimum--$2,500 each. This is a reward-to-risk ratio of more than 5-to-1 and is the type of trade I look to recommend to subscribers. To learn more about my trading service, click here.
George Kleinman is editor of Commodities Trends.